Mr Henry told the Courier Mail that Chinese families are looking offshore for their second or third property investments because of cooling measures in place in China.

Searches in Queensland tended towards $1.2 to $1.3 million, although most were working off budgets that were around $2 to $3 million according to Mr Henry.

“They’re certainly not first-home-buyer type properties. They’re looking for new builds and off the plan properties in that million-dollar-plus space.”

Another significant driver is education, with upper middle-income Chinese families willing to spend up to 70 per cent of their budgets on their children’s future. This includes buying a property for their children to live in while they study.

“Australia is known as a safe place to live, with good property options available. The lifestyle is also good and some are looking ahead to moving to Australia permanently later to set up businesses or retire,” Mr Henry said.

Tom XiaoYi, of Yong International Real Estate, said the Chinese market has shown increasing interest in some of Brisbane’s suburbs.

“Sunnybank, Robertson, MacGregor, Eight Mile Plains, Sunnybank Hills, Cannonvale, Stretton, these are sought after suburbs in the Chinese market. It’s because it’s close to lots of cultural centres, restaurants, shopping, and importantly to university and good schools,” Mr XiaoYi said.

“In the past few years property prices on mainland China have skyrocketed which makes buying a house extremely unaffordable in China. It’s actually caused more people to choose to move overseas, and with Canada recently closing the door on the investor visa, Australia has become more popular.”

Mr XiaoYi predicts that Brisbane residents could fetch prices higher than pre-global financial crisis highs if they have the right combination to attract Chinese buyers.

“Enquiries have definitely increased. Chinese are very location discriminative – close to services, shopping, schools and universities. Properties they can move into straight away tend to get a lot more than those that need a bit of work,” Mr XiaoYi said.

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